


buddy up

by commandont



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: (-ish?), Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Characters to be added, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Relationships, Relationships to be added - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 13:35:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14895566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commandont/pseuds/commandont
Summary: Pandora is infamous for being a ruthless bandit planet, where it would be almost suicide to travel through its wasteland landscape unarmed. And even then, armed with the finest weapons, you could still find yourself in a spot of bother. That's why it's better to travel in a group, so everyone has everyone's backs.The Vault Hunters are no exception - they function as a unit, and get along as friends. So how did this dynamic come about, and play out, in their quest for loot, glory and beyond?





	buddy up

**Author's Note:**

> hi my name is major i like to play.. video games and i love character-driven bullshit and also guns? shooting things? fun.
> 
> i fell in love with borderlands again a month or so again and after beating Borderlands 2 for a second time, I decided to write a small ficlet series featuring one on one interactions between the Vault Hunters of BL2 + others. The number of chapters isn't totally concreate, but it's what i've got planned for now. i'm really excited to get to writing this!
> 
> if you have a suggestion for a pairing, as long as it focuses on one of the bl2 vault hunters, i'll probably consider it if i don't have it down already :0

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi did I introduce you to my BrOTP because these two are the Chaotic Pair and i love them with my entire heart????
> 
> Gaige got a lot of my terrible insomniac tendencies whoops i'm sorry darling

As much the Pandora was dangerous, bloodthirsty, with the sounds of firing gunshots ringing in her ears long after a firefight, corpses at her feet and blood staining her boots with each bandit encounter, Gaige couldn’t say that the night sky wasn’t pretty.

 

It was a deep, empty expanse, the giant H in the sky (one that brought her distaste to acknowledge) formed what should have been a moon, clouds covering whatever stars were up there, deep out in space, light years away from the hell she lived in. It wasn’t exactly star gazing if there were no stars to gaze at, but still, as the cold midnight air brushed over her bare arm, she curled her knees up to her chest and continued to look up. She’d been doing this for hours now, well past when the final body fell into slumber (Maya made her promise she would at least rest, though Gaige knew that would be unlikely), too tired to stay awake but too awake to sleep - caught in this limbo that echoed in her head, between all the thoughts that plagued her now that she wasn’t distracted by the violence typical to her survival. The thought her life on the line, the bounty on her head, the science fair… her dad. God, she missed her dad. Their final goodbye played in her head on repeat now, the way he wrapped his arms around her so tightly, the way he smelled lightly of coconut and oil, the way his tears steamed up his glasses, the way she watched the final explosions he set off from the pod she escaped in, the way she choked up while talking about him through her ECHOcaster, the way she could feel her tears threatening to leak out of her eyes-

Gaige growled a little, wiping her eyes with the back of her arm, sighing as she moved her arms behind her to rest her weight on, lowering her legs and stretching them out in front of her… not realising not only, just how frustrated she was, but also how violently she moved them back, and how close she was in proximity to her fellow vault hunters. And though she couldn’t feel it, per say, she would certainly hear the metal hand colliding with someone, and a quiet, tired ‘what in the god damn-’ from just behind her. She wiped her head around, cringing slightly as she saw the soldier she didn’t even realise was sleeping so close sit up, rubbing his face with his eyes half closed.

“Ah, shit- Axton, I’m  _ really _ sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“Nah, it’s fine, don’t sweat it.” He kept his voice at the same level as hers - a hushed whisper - as he waved his other hand, trying to not look too annoyed, though he wasn’t very good at it. The commando rose to sit, finally moving his hand off of his face to look at Gaige. “...You slept?”

“No, not yet. I, uh,” she sniffled a little, shrugging her shoulders. “I dunno, I’ve been thinking about… stuff.”

“Stuff? What kinda stuff?”

“Home stuff.”

“...Ah.” He spoke almost knowingly. Gaige looked away again, back to the sky, the breeze blowing the clouds away to reveal tiny twinklings of distant stars, few and far between. She heard quiet shuffling from behind her, as Axton now moved to sit by her side, and look at the sky with her too.

 

The spent a few minutes just like that. Gaige moved her legs to her chest again, crossing her arms and resting them on top of her knees, and her chin on top of that, quietly analyzing the sky as, one by one, more stars began to sparkle up there, looking down on the two of them. She didn’t even realise she was crying again until she heard herself sniffling, and felt an arm wrap around her shoulder. She looked up, wiping her eyes again with her metal hand, feeling the coldness of it against her skin as she did, laughing nervously and looking down again. “Ahah… sorry, I don’t-”

“Gaige, it’s fine. We’re all in a tight spot, but I guess you’ve got it the worse, huh?”

“Yeah… having to run to another planet to become a vault hunter and escape charges of murder because your science fair project went rampant on the world’s biggest bitch isn’t exactly how I pictured my life to go.” Gaige shrugged, looking up again, letting out a small laugh at the look of surprise on Axton’s face. “What, it’s the truth. Not what you were expecting?”

“I, uh… honestly don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.”

She couldn’t help but giggle again, having to cover her mouth to muffle the sounds as to not wake up the others, not noticing the way Axton smiled, much preferring this to her being upset. He brought her in closer, more into a side hug before loving his arm away.

“Say… since you and I aren’t gonna be sleepin’ anytime soon, what’d’ya say we kill the time?”

The mechromancer looked up, a smirk on her lips. “Was that pun intentional, or…?”

He returned the smirk before he leaned back, grabbing his backpack from the side of his bedding area. “Maybe so.”

Gaige snorted, pushing herself to her feet and stepping lightly to grab her gear, almost skipping at Axton’s side, the two of them casting shadows on the sand as they headed towards a skag’s nest far enough away from camp that the sounds of their bullets wouldn’t cause the other’s a start.

 

The beasts never stood a chance, and the final round of ammo was shot off into the corpse of an adult skag. Gaige reloaded her pistol, sliding the magazine into place with an expression of victory, before looking to Axton a few metres away, and strapped his assault rifle back onto his back and wiped the beads of sweat off of his forehead, leaning against his turret as he shot a thumbs up at Gaige. Whatever sadness she felt before was killed off, for now, her mind clear and her pockets a little lighter, now they weren’t lined with as many spare magazines of ammo. Now that whatever bad feelings that had loomed over were shot out of the sky, so to speak, they began to head back, the sun rising on the horizon, hidden behind jagged, rocky cliffs that littered the landscape.

“Hey, Axton?” Gaige spoke at a normal volume, as they were still quite a bit away from the camp.

“Yeah?”

“...Uh, thanks. For, you know… keeping me company.”

He paused for a moment, his face blank, before he shrugged. “It’s fine, trust me, I know what it’s like to miss someone. It’s not fun to deal with on your own.”

“...Who do you miss?”

Axton fell silent, his face falling a little, before he shook his head slightly. “Just, uh… someone who isn’t with me anymore.”

Her eyes fell to his neck, to the necklace tied around it, and the ring hanging from the chain. Even if, despite the heart-to-heart shoot-out they’d just had, she was too stubborn to talk about his feelings, that told her what she needed to know, for now. “Well… if you ever need to vent it out again, insomnia is almost always biting me in the ass, so…” She jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow, laughing as he misstepped and stumbled a little.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Thanks.”

They shared a small smile again, just as the camp came into view, and they saw the others were already awake. Gaige gave a shout and an excited wave, already coming up with a cover for why they were gone without notice. What happened tonight would stay between the two of them, until the next time she was alone at night with her thoughts. And as she smiled and shrugged and apologised for being a bother, Gaige thought about how soon that would be, and how thankful she was to have someone like Axton the Commando there to help.


End file.
